WEEI Producer Suspended for Vulgar Texts To Rival 98.5 FM

Jessica Heslam has the story in the Herald this morning. (Also noted in Ken Fang’s Megalinks in the post below this one.)

The simmering feud between the city’s two sports radio powerhouses boiled over yesterday when a WEEI producer got slapped with a one-week suspension for texting “vulgar” messages to upstart rival the Sports Hub.

Andy Massaua, who works for Glenn Ordway’s “The Big Show,” was suspended yesterday and has been banned from texting anyone at WBZ-FM (98.5).

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Published by Bruce Allen

Well, well … I’m sure that Wolfe is more upset at the publicity given to 98.5, as opposed to the content of the texts themselves. Has the Hub really gotten under enough skins over there, or is this simply something personal. Either way, free publicity for an EEI rival, and they look like the bullies that can’t take jabs in return.

Dick, I thought it was a brilliant move on T&R’s part to do what they did. The LAST thing that WEEI wants to do is to give 98.5 any type of publicity, and Andy basically gave them a free gift. I agree with you… What was he thinking?

I imagine Wolfe is irate about this, especially given the pressure he must be under with some actual competition in town.

I was talking about the two nighttime guys, DA and his producer. They’re coming off like sissies who ran to mommy or the teacher rather than face up to him. He said he thought about leaving a message but didn’t. I guess at that point he chose to be a tattletale rather than a man.

Over at radioinfo.com, someone claiming to be “Bob Lobel” chimed in on the topic, claiming that Marc Bertrand dropped a dime to the Herald. Bertrand (or someone claiming to be him) replied:

I have never bore any ill will towards WEEI or Andy Massaua. Furthermore, I have never spoken to Jessica Heslam.

I’m smart enough to know that making a name for yourself comes from doing a job well, and not spreading gossip to a newspaper. Considering your experience in 2005 with a case of libel, you should be smart enough not to spread irresponsible rumors on an industry message board.

That is crazy. What’s wrong with a little producer-to-talent vulgar texting? All these guys know eachother anyways. Half of the staff at 98.5 came from WEEI. And then the herald has this line, ‘Massaua never responded to repeated text messages seeking a comment.’ Haha, they are trying to get Andy to comment on a text by answering a text. Awesome. Damon Amendolara read this stuff on the air, and then said to the Herald that people can’t just ‘be vulgar.’ Come on D.A. Give it up. This whole thing is ridiculous. D.A better make it there, because he is now black balled from WEEI.

Sports Juke, real quick: We never spoke to the Herald. Jessica used my quotes from the air. Wasn’t any need on our parts to contact anyone else. We had fun with it. Just nice to know we have P1’s in the least likely places. Like the other radio station. Keep up the good work on this site and on these message threads.

Dick, you’re big on “man-to-man” confrontations. Are you a fight promoter? So, it was a manly thing for the the idiotic Andy to send dozens of ridiculous texts rather than go to the station and confront the guys at 98.5 man to man..you know, the tough way to handle things. But DA and his crew talking about these texts was somehow not cool? Really? Dick, at least DA used his name on this thread or would you rather I confront you about my thoughts that you’re a fraud??

Let us know when your all brawling tour includes a Steel Cage match between Howie Carr, Click and Clack the Tappett Brothers, and Matty in the Morning. Because that would be more hilarious than the lame fight club between DA and a random WEE producer you’re advocating.

P1s are the listeners who tune in for the whole show. They are gold but are not the targets of most outreach b/c they are already hooked. The station has actually gotten more P1 friendly by dropping repetitive sports flashes every 20 minutes though I doubt that was the primary goal.

quote from Heslam’s article:::: “Andy (has to) think about, and reflect, on his irresponsible and sophomoric actions that will not be tolerated by this station,” said WEEI-AM (850) program honcho Jason Wolfe.

LMFAO!……”sophomoric actions” are what WEEI is all about. Maybe not the Dale and Holley show so much, but certainly the Dennis and Callahan Show and The Big Show…..jeeze Wolfe, you do know you have something called THE WHINER LINE, don’t you?…..”sophomoric actions”…..that’s too damn funny

For years, we were all told by the pompous, arrogant windbags that pose as WEEI’s management team and on-air talking heads that their dominant position was all due to their alleged “talent.” Puhleeze! They were the only game in town during an era of unprecedented success by the professional Boston teams: three Super Bowl titles, two World Series Championships, and an NBA crown all between 2002-2008.

For those of us who like sports and use it as a diversion from every-day life, there was no place else to go on the dial while driving around — we were being held hostage by those clowns. Now that ‘EEI finally has some legitimate competition for the first time in the form of 98.5 (it’s a flawed station, to be sure, but it’s a start), we’re seeing how Khan, Wolfie, Fraudway, and their assorted minions are reacting to the pressure. And all this after 98.5 has been on the air for only six months.

T&R mentioned something this morning about Andy having some sort of personal feud going with Chuck Perks, the update guy on DA’s nighttime show. Apparently Perks used to work for EEI’s Worcester affiliate and still occasionally works on one of the other stations out there (XLO?). T&R made it sound like Perks was the subject of Andy’s texts, perhaps because he is jealous of Perks’ success.

If that’s true it’s awfully sad, given that Perks’ “success” constitutes being a nighttime update guy and parttime deejay. Unless Andy has been bucking for an on-air job at EEI for years and was told by Entercom he’s too valuable as a producer to leave that post, I can’t think of any reason why he’d be envious of Perks’ current position. It’s not even like Perks is hosting a show on 98.5.

The walls of the great EEI Roman Empire are starting to crack considerably these days. They’ll recover a bit ratings-wise once Red Sox season starts up, but between this incident and Sheppard’s departure, 2010 has hardly been a banner year for the #1 sports radio station in the country.

How the hell did he NOT think this was going to get out? DA is on the air during a period of time where the Celtics are awful, Spring training is in it’s opening stages and the only thing to legitimately talk about is the Olympics? And WEEI didn’t think this was going to get leaked? The hubris is hilarious.

Thats the problem, part of me thinks Glenn “Vince McMahon” Ordway is enjoying this as its a storyline he can use. They’ve already played a few texting bits today and he’s alluded to texting at least 3 other times. Its all about the show, no matter who gets hurt by it (Andy, Shepp, etc..).

DA is a No Talent buffoon. Everyone should send him angry text messages. I have no idea how he got that show. However, Gresh is even worse. How can anyone listen to that idiot. He’s so full of himself and that’s a lot to be full of.

Hey Gresh, you suck. Go back to PA. I’d rather listen to Mustard than you.

I believe DA is the first true ‘next-generation’ sportstalk host working a fulltime gig here in Boston. He seems to totally embrace texting/Facebook/Twitter as a major component of his show, the first in this market to do so. I wonder if some of the dislike for him comes from older sports fans who aren’t as much into that sort of thing?

One thing to keep in mind about DA is that he is doing an entire 5-hour show essentially by himself, and I wonder if sometimes he goes off on long monologues because there are no callers on the line.

Back in the day, Ted Sarandis had a similar reputation that he loved to hear himself talk, but it’s not easy doing a show that long all by yourself. But you’ll never see a station pay considerable bucks to two guys to host a nighttime show.

I’m a little late to the discussion, but I’d like to think that the way I’d have handled this would be to call Andy, once I learned who it was, and ask “what the h**l is your problem?”. If I got a snarky answer or a bunch of attitude, then I would’ve gone on the air with it.

In any event, I had never heard of DA before this, so I guess it worked out for him.